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Wednesday July 26, 2017

A SPEEDBOAT with 47 people on board capsized in waters off North Kalimantan province in central Indonesia yesterday, a senior offi cial of rescue offi ce said.

Rejeki Baru speedboat, head-ing to Tanjung Selor of Bulun-gan district, sank after sailing 1 km off the coast of Pelabuhan Tengkayu of Tarakan town, a spokesman of the national search and rescue offi ce Mar-sudi said.

“Our personnel are undertak-ing a search and rescue operation for the victims of the incident,” he told Xinhua by phone.

Rescuers from the navy and water police also took part in the rescue operationm.

(Xinhua)

Boat with 47 aboard sinks in Indonesia

A 32-YEAR-OLD Chinese woman was killed, and four members of a Chinese family and a Cypriot were injured Monday evening after a speedboat crashed into rocks off the northwest coast of Cyprus.

The accident happened around 7:00 p.m. local time Monday. The Chinese Embassy in Cyprus said yesterday morning that these fi ve Chinese aboard the speedboat were from the central Chinese province of Hubei and had settled in Cyprus.

The injured Chinese family includes a young couple and their boy and girl. The girl in critical condition is undergoing an operation in local hospital. The boat’s Cypriot operator was also seriously injured in the accident. It was reported that the injured were collected by marine police and other boats, and were then taken to hospitals.

Police are trying to determine the circumstances of the acci-dent. (Xinhua)

Chinese dies in speedboat accident

ISRAEL decided yesterday to remove metal detectors it had placed at the entrance to a holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City and replace them with smart, less obtrusive surveillance means, a Cabinet statement said.

Israel installed metal detec-tors at entry points to Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusa-lem after two police offi cers were fatally shot July 14, triggering the bloodiest clashes between Israe-lis and Palestinians in years.

The spike in tensions and the deaths of three Israelis and four Palestinians in violence Friday and Saturday have trig-gered international alarm and prompted the United Nations Security Council to convene a meeting to seek ways of calming the situation.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet voted to remove the metal detector gates after a meeting lasting several hours convening for a second time Monday after it had broken off discussions a day earlier.

A statement issued after the forum of senior ministers con-cluded their meeting said they had decided to act on the recom-mendation of the security bodies and replace the metal detectors with “smart checking” means.

Witnesses in the Old City saw municipal workers installing metal beams above some of the narrow stone paved streets

Israel to replace detectors in Jerusalem

for closed-circuit TV cameras. Israeli media said there were plans to invest in advanced camera systems.

The Cabinet statement added that it had allocated 100 million shekels (about US$28 million) for the equipment and for addi-tional police offi cers.

The decision to remove the metal detector gates was an about-turn after the rightist Netanyahu, wary of being seen

to capitulate to Palestinian pres-sure, said Sunday the devices would stay put.

But on top of the outbreak of violence mainly in the Jerusalem area, a Palestinian move Friday by President Mahmoud Abbas to suspend offi cial contacts and international criticism put pres-sure on Israel.

Netanyahu was further ham-pered following a fatal shooting incident at the Israeli embassy

in Jordan on Sunday when an Israeli security guard was attacked and shot dead two Jordanians.

Jordan is the custodian of Jerusalem’s Muslim holy sites, which Jews revere as the vestige of their two ancient temples and which was among East Jeru-salem areas Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed as its capital in a move not recognized internationally. (SD-Agencies)

Protesters pray at the entrance to Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem yesterday. Xinhua

TWO former leaders of an isolated polyga-mous community in Canada were convicted Monday of practicing polygamy after a decades-long legal fi ght, setting up another potential court battle over the constitutional-ity of Canada’s polygamy laws.

Winston Blackmore, 60, and James Oler, 53, were found guilty by British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Sheri Ann Donegan, who said the evidence was clear that Black-more was married to 25 women at the same time and that Oler was married to fi ve women in the tiny community of Bountiful.

Blackmore, 60, never denied having the wives as part of his religious beliefs that call for “celestial” marriages. His lawyer Blair Suffredine has already said Blackmore would challenge the constitutionality of Canada’s polygamy laws if his client was found guilty.

“I’m guilty of living my religion and that’s

all I’m saying today because I’ve never denied that,” Blackmore told reporters after the ver-dict. “Twenty-seven years and tens of millions of dollars later, all we’ve proved is something we’ve never denied. I’ve never denied my faith. This is what we expected.”

Blackmore and Oler were prosecuted as part of an investigation fi rst launched in the early 1990s by the provincial government.

Under Canadian law, the maximum penalty they will each face is fi ve years in prison. The two will be sentenced at future hearings.

Blackmore and Oler are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect that believes in plural marriage. The group’s main base is in a small community on the Utah-Arizona border in the United States.

Oler was chosen to lead the Canadian community just north of the U.S. state of

Canadian polygamous leader found guilty of having 25 wives

Winston Blackmore, the religious leader of the controver-sial polygamous community of Bountiful, shares a laugh with six of his daughters and some of his grandchildren in this April 21, 2008 fi le photo. SD-Agencies

Idaho following Blackmore’s excommu-nication from the sect in 2002 by Warren Jeffs, considered the prophet and leader of the group.

(SD-Agencies)

JAPAN’S Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was questioned in parlia-ment yesterday about a cronyism scandal after opposition law-makers alleged he testifi ed falsely a day earlier when he denied using his infl uence to help a friend.

Parliament has heard alle-gations from lower-level staffers and gathered documents that show Abe’s offi ce intervened to help Kotaro Kake to open a new veterinary school in western Japan. Parliament is continuing to question Abe about his personal role.

On Monday he repeatedly denied using his infl uence and said he learned of his friend’s plans only after Kake formally applied in January.

Opposition lawmakers say it’s unthinkable Abe was unaware of a years-old plan that other offi cials knew.

Abe is expected to reshuffl e his Cabinet after scandals and rail-roading of unpopular legislation sank his approval ratings.

(SD-Agencies)

Abe accused of false denial in school scandal

Shinzo Abe

RESCUERS were frantically searching for up to 40 people feared trapped in a four-story building that collapsed yester-day in India’s fi nancial capital of Mumbai, offi cials said.

The city’s chief fi re offi cer, Prabhat Rahangdale, said nine people had been rescued but dozens more were believed missing under rubble after the structure gave way mid-morn-ing in the northern suburb of Ghatkopar.

“Entire ground and four fl oored residential building col-lapsed. About 30 to 40 persons

suspected to be trapped. Until now nine persons (have been) rescued and sent to hospital,” Rahangdale said.

Tanaji Kamble, a disaster management spokesman for Mumbai’s civic administrative body, said there had been no reports of any deaths and the nine admitted to the hospital had minor injuries.

“Our rescue teams are con-ducting search operations to help people trapped inside,” he said.

Building collapses are common in India, especially during the

annual monsoon season, which usually runs from late June to September.

Millions of Indians are forced to live in cramped, ramshackle properties because of rising real estate prices and a lack of hous-ing for the poor.

A dilapidated building killed 12 people when it collapsed outside Mumbai in August 2015.

Nine people died the same month when another old three-story building collapsed in mon-soon rain in the Mumbai suburb of Thakurli.

(SD-Agencies)

Dozens trapped in Mumbai building collapse